


After the Storm

by Windcage



Category: POTTER Beatrix - Works, Peter Rabbit (2018)
Genre: Backstory, F/M, POV Multiple, Romance, Starts after the electric fence “incident”
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 14:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14114811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Windcage/pseuds/Windcage
Summary: While Peter keeps on his crusade to get rid of McGregor - also known as the "Get our garden back" plan - his antics seem to be making Bea and Thomas grow closer. That was not what Peter had in mind. Not remotely.





	1. Bea

# Bea

Curtains of rain were falling over the same grove that Bea had painted that morning, grey clouds covering the darkening blue sky her brush had painstakingly tried to recreate as increasingly strong gusts of wind dived through the trees. Spooked by the storm the wildlife scurried for the protection of their dens, getting to safety just as broken branches and leafs started flying over the meadow.

Herself struggling to get home—and having to fight against the wind to get the bicycle there—Bea was finally able to reach safety as thunder started echoing in the distance. Opening the door, only to be forced to wrestle it shut, Bea put the bicycle against the wall and immediately ran inside the conservatory, the same words that had been on the tip of her tongue during the journey being repeated time and time again.

“It can’t be that bad. For sure it isn’t _that_ bad.”

‘It’ was still attached to the side of the bicycle, carefully wrapped in a plastic protection and dripping water all over the floor. The painting’s rule over her mind, however, was momentarily broken by a far more immediate concern: the wind had thrown the conservatory doors open, water and soaked leaves were splattered all over the floor, creeping ever closer to her paintings.

“No-no-no!”

Why she reached for the rabbits’ drawings first, running in and out of the conservatory while leaving her _real work_ at the storm’s mercy, was a question she was spared having to answer by seeing the same rabbit family whose paintings she was carrying burst through the open door, soaked and visibly shivering.

“Go inside, sweeties!”

The storm seemed to have grown in strength by the time she was able to retreat inside the sturdier part of the house, the rattling of the conservatory windows becoming louder and louder despite the now firmly closed doors. Grabbing her latest painting and placing it against the kitchen counter, Bea went to sit, crossed leg, on the floor in front of it. Her fingers rested on the plastic protection for a long while before she gathered her courage and unwrapped it.

_It can’t be that bad._

The instant, the scarlet stravaganzza lying in wait burst triumphantly into view, however, she was forced to rescind those words, all the while shaking her head.

“It came out horrendous, didn’t it?”

Gathered around the heater she had placed under the small kitchen table, the rabbits turned at her question—or should she say the sound of her voice—the biggest of the group, the plump brown one with the equally brown jacket, tilting his head so much he ended up slipping on the soaked floor, losing his balance and tumbling inelegantly onto the cushion.

The sight would have made Bea smile was it not for the one she had come to call Peter remaining uncharacteristically behind his sisters. A pang of guilt pressing her stomach, she called him closer, feeling relieved when, despite everything, he did so.

“I didn’t mean to shout at you.”

Peter’s ears went up as if he had understood. Not that he possibly could have. Thinking he had was about as silly as going around telling the rabbits not to enter old Mcgregor’s garden, but even so—

_It means something._

Bea got to her feet with that, exiting the kitchen to fetch towels. Her mind, however, rapidly slipped away from her guests and her intended course of action. She was back to the painting and, well, that speaking of McGregors, she had to hide it—shove it under the bed, or on top of a cabinet, or anywhere at all—before she invited Thomas here. She shuddered to think what he would think that aberration on the kitchen floor was. She felt like cringing at the mere thought he would, as sweet as that was, compliment it.

 _I can do better than that,_ she told herself, dropping the towels next to the rabbits and going back to the painting to place it over the counter. _I just have to focus. To study. To_ —

The window rattled. Instinctively reaching for it and turning the latch to make sure it was firmly locked, Bea ended up leaning closer to the glass, searching through the rain hitting it for the manor’s lights, only now aware of the absolute darkness outside.

_Strange._

Come to think of it, she had not seen any lights when running home either—and she would be lying if she said she hadn’t found it weird not to see Thomas coming to her aid when she had been fleeing the storm. Weirder still, however, was to find the conservatory open when she was rather certain he would have come and closed it at the first sign of rain.

Putting one of the towels around her shoulders, Bea went to sit next to Peter and his family. A shiver going up her spine as she rubbed her hands together in front of the heater, she then dedicated herself to the inglorious task of trying to dry the three playfully squabbling females. Not even their antics, however—or the focus it took to keep any of them still for more than three seconds—were enough for her not glance at the window, concern weaving its way into her mind.

“Have any of you seen Thomas today?”

Had she been looking at the rabbits she might have noticed the knowledgeable looks being traded, maybe even their undoubtedly victorious expressions. Then again, if she had, Bea would have dismissed all of it as being her imagination, as she so often did. Stopping midway into drying Peter, she took him into her arms and went back to study the darkness outside.

“Did he go to town?”

A scar of lightning ripped through the clouds, the now much closer rumbling making Peter jump out of her arms to rejoin his suddenly quiet family. For Bea, however, that split second had been enough to see the familiar shape of a car occupying the manor’s side entrance and for her stomach to twist.

_No. Not in town._

There was probably nothing to be worried about, however. He could be already be in bed—

_Doubtful._

Or maybe the electricity was out due to the—

Her attention fell on the heater, its red hot resistance leading her to step outside the kitchen, take a jacket out of the coat hanger and, putting it over the soaked clothes she hadn’t yet got a chance to jump out of, stride for the door.

She was just opening it when she saw both Peter and the brown male hopping behind her. It was incredibly sweet and it simply wouldn’t do.

“No,” she stated, firmly. “You two have to stay here.”

Night had firmly closed its grasp over the meadows when she stepped outside. The wind whistled as it went passed the trees. From everywhere rose sounds of wood breaking and whining.

Feet sinking into the soaked grass, having to fight against the wind to advance, Bea got passed the garden’s door, walking alongside the flower beds until she finally got herself to the front door.

There truly were no lights on.

No music was playing.

Upon knocking, Bea could hear no movement inside.

“Thomas?”

Thunder roared overhead. Trying the doorbell and again having no answer, she leaned to look through the nearest window and, upon seeing nothing, turned the knob. The door opened. And her surprise that it did was such that she let it slip from her grasp. The wind took care of the rest sending it crashing into the wall.

Not even that was enough to warrant her any answer.

“Thomas?”

Again silence. Bea hit the lights, attention immediately falling on the turned entry table and the objects lying on the floor. If nothing else had pointed to the fact that something was very very wrong, that did.

“Thomas!”

She was getting frantic now. Fear twisting her stomach, the hint of panic in her voice threatening to consume her mind as she made her way back to the entrance, stepping into the ferocious rain, eyes surveying the garden.

_He can’t be outside. He can’t possibly be outside!_

She swore if was securing anything in the garden in this weather, she would—

_He wouldn’t do that with the lights off!_

“Thomas!”

Rain beat her face as she looked feverishly around. Fallen plants making her stumble as what she could only imagine were fruits burst under her feet. If there was a moment to curse herself for not having thought of bringing a flashlight that moment was now. The only light she could count on came from up above, from the nearly incessant lightning, and that was little above nothing. It blinded her more than anything else.

“Thomas?”

Hugging the jacket close to her body, Bea entered one of the paths nearest the house, the thought that she had heard something making her venture further.

“Tho—?”

A strong gust of wind caught her from behind. Being sent stumbling forward, a scared gasp crossing her lips when her feet got trapped on something lying across the path, Bea felt herself falling, then hitting the floor just a moan reached her ears.

Hands sinking through mud and water, heart beating in such a way it seemed about to burst out of her chest, Bea felt it fall through the floor when she saw what it was that she had tripped over.

_Thomas._

No sound made it through her lips this time. Instead, she was rushing to his side, dropping to her knees, trying to fish her cellphone out of her pockets as she reached to pull his head out of the mud and softly hit his cheek, trying to rise him up.

“Wake up. Please, wake up,” she pleaded, stealing glances at the cellphone, the memory of Thomas’ absolutely outraged expression when he had found out there was no coverage here and that had made her laugh so much at the time, almost making her burst into tears now. There was no coverage. Of course, there was no coverage! That was the reason she had come here in the first place! “Wake up!”

Maybe it was the panic in her voice that did the trick, maybe it was just coincidence, it didn’t matter. He was stirring. Her relief at seeing his eyelids flutter, a pair of confused green eyes appearing from under them was, however, immediately destroyed by a thunderous explosion overhead and a huge flash making the night appear as day.

Hearing wood whine and crack as a lightning bolt cut through the clouds and dived to the earth, Bea turned in a panic. There was nothing she could do as the tree it had hit crashed into her house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because having that tree fall on the house earlier is too much of an opportunity not to be explored. And for anyone worried about Peter and his family, they are all fine!
> 
> Anyway, I hoped you liked it. Next, Peter.


	2. Peter

# Peter

“Flopsy. Mopsy. Cottontail. Benjamin. One-two-three-four…”

_Four?_

Again counting the presents, Peter felt as if the floor had been taken from under his feet.

“Shouldn’t it be _five_ of us?” he queried, the slightest hint of panic in his voice. “Where is the fifth? Has anybody seen—? Oh…” Right paw touching each of the aforementioned sisters’ and cousin’s heads, Peter, this time, remembered to include his own. “Five, that— _that_ would be _me_." A nervous chuckle crossing is lips, he turned back to his family. "Are we all all right? Did anybody get hurt?”

The question, one that he had asked half a million times already and that had in all other occasions been meet with quick response—if increasingly unenergetic ones—now awarded him with little more than a sound _‘shhhhh’_ from the place where the triplets were lying, their heads sticking from under the blanket covering their hideout.

Tilting his head, Peter hopped to their side, trying to peek outside and ending up forced to pull the bedspread up in order to see.

Such was the sight with which he was faced that he was left sticking his tongue out in disgust—a sentiment that was somehow made even _worse_ when, glancing at his side, he caught every single one of his sisters sighing.

_Oh, come on!_

“That’s not _awwww_ ,” Peter told them, getting back inside the hideout only to have to stick his head outside again seeing as nobody followed his lead. “That is just wrong! And not what it looks like! And—!”

Asleep on the armchair right in front of them, Bea let out a soft groan, her eyelids fluttering slightly. Immediately, three heads turned to him, shushing him one at a time. Himself covering his mouth, watching as, wrapping the patchwork quilt further around her, Bea fell back asleep, Peter glanced from her to that which had so captured his sisters attention and let out a silent scoff—his desire to keep defending his argument only made silent by Bea’s tired expression and Benjamin appearing at his side, curiosity written all over his face.

“What did I miss?”

Grimacing, Peter pointed him to the offending sight, rolling his eyes when his cousin very soft _“Oh”_ was followed by another eruption of synchronized sighing from the girls.

“ _Really?_ ” Peter asked them, only for Benjamin to elbow him that same instant.

“They are distracted.”

Which given the circunstances was no small thing to be thankful for. Sighing, looking from Benjamin to the girls, Peter gave them a concerned look.

“Are you three really all right?”

Lying to his left, Cottontail finally went from dreamily looking at _that_ , to giving him attention. She was disheveled, both her blue jacket and white fur full of dirt. A lot more worrying than that, however, was a serious lack of her keeping tabs on how many ribs she had left.

“We are fine, Peter.”

And if that answer wasn’t worrying he didn’t know what was.

To be entirely honest here, Peter had been the one who had the, on hindsight, not-so-brilliant idea to leave the burrow in the middle of that storm, the certainty that everything had finally gone back to normal after weeks of being kept away from Bea on account of the newest McGregor stealing _their_ space, making him step outside on a whim, his entire family in tow.

Head filled with images of the five of them wrapped under a blanket on the sofa as she studied one of those books with strange images she kept around, Peter had, unfortunately, found himself twarthed. Instead of spending a pleasant evening with Bea, they had watched her close the door on them and step into the storm.

“What is she _doing_?!”

Panic running through their veins, both his and Benjamin’s efforts to open the door and follow her failing in such a way they had been left with little choice but run to the kitchen, Peter had stuck his head inside, finding the girls already on top of the counter and with their noses pressed to the window.

“The conservatory door!” He called to them. “Help us!”

Between the five of them they would for sure have managed to open it, but then— _then_ there had been a blinding flash of light and they had heard that horrible noise—like an explosion only louder and closer and it had shook the house before it hit it, turning their world into a never ending mass of crashing wood and breaking glass.

Peter had no idea how they had gotten away from that, only that when he had recovered from the fright and found himself making sure everyone had made their way safely under the kitchen table, the door was being opened and Bea, soaked and without her jacket, was forcing her way inside. Before any of them had even understood what was happening, she had taken a picnic basket out of one of the many kitchen cabinets and managed to put all his three sisters and himself inside it, close the lid and step back into the night and the roaring storm—a very frighten looking Benjamin firmly wrapped in a jacket and pressed against her chest.

Next thing Peter knew, they were bursting inside the manor and both Flopsy and Mopsy, whose end of the basket had entered the brightly iluminated hall first, had kicked him, a whisper of—

“Peter! Look!”

—making him turn to find them pointing his attention to _something—_ no, not something, _someone_ sitting on the stairway landing. A man. Head on his knees. Bea’s jacket hugging his shoulders. The moment, he had raised his eyes to glance at the place where Bea was using her back as leverage to close the door, Peter had felt his chin drop.

“How—?!”

But Bea had chosen that exact moment to put the basket on the floor and let them out, all the while glancing worryingly at the top of the stairs.

“Stay here, okay?” she told them and just like that she was gone, running up the stairs to kneel next to McGregor, speaking to him in such a soft voice that the thunder and the rain hitting the windows were enough to drown her voice. Whatever reaction she had expected out of him, however, to see him raising one hand and softly touch her face obviously hadn’t been it, for, looking more concerned than ever, she had gotten up and lead him up the stairs, her hand firmly wrapped around his.

They were like _that_ ever since. Fingers entwined. Not letting go of each other. And Peter swore he would put an end to it if he could _—_ to be honest, he had already tried to. Sneaking outside when everyone had been asleep, he had hopped on top of the bed, the mattress keeping his footsteps silent as he moved towards his target, got into position and kicked it as hard as he could.

The pained cry McGregor had let out in response still infuriated him about as much as seeing Bea jump out of the armchair and run for the light on the side table had panicked him. Was it not for the thing refusing to turn on—something, he discovered, he had to thank Benjamin for—he would have been caught before he could even think of diving through the gap between the bed and the side table, falling directly on top of his cousin.

“What on earth were you _doing_?”

And that, _that_ question right _there_ , had been what had put the girls’ heads sticking out from under the bed and lead them to “awwwing” and romantically sighing when, going back to the armchair, Bea had again grabbed McGregor’s hand—only this time instead of the relaxed grip Peter had broke, she had entwined her fingers in his with such fierceness there was nothing left to be done other than wait for her to break the grip.

And that frustrated Peter to no end.

“He is pretending,” he told Benjamim, rapidly thumping his right foot on the carpet. “There is nothing wrong with him. Why doesn’t she see it?”

“I really don’t think—”

Thunder put an end to Benjamin's rebuttal. The balcony door shook. Rain beat down against the glass. Scurrying under the bed just as Bea’s feet released themselves from the blanket, they watched her approach the door, go over the latch and, her eyes becoming lost outside for a long moment, make her way back.

Hearing the mattress’ springs whine over their heads when she sat, Peter found himself pressing his nose at his sisters’ sprint for the side table, Benjamin approaching him finally forcing him to stop signalling them to get back inside and give his cousin attention.

“What is the plan?” he queried.

“To keep dry and warm and comfortable.”

Seeing him fall on the carpet, Benjamin gestured vehemently towards the mattress over their heads.

“By camping under _his_ bed?”

“It’s an idea.”

“A bad idea, Peter!”

Stealing a glance at his sisters, Peter got back to his feet.

“It’s my only idea,” he admitted, locking heads with Benjamin, a hint of anxiety in his voice. “That was our tree that fell. I don’t think we have a burrow anymore.” He stopped for a moment, heartache forcibly put aside. “Besides, this new McGregor is a double faced fox. Bea brought us inside! We _are_ with her. If we _stay_ with her—”

Benjamim was pulling his hears down.

“We threw McGregor off the roof!”

It was not as if Peter needed to be reminded of that—it had been a heck of a big fall even by Cottontail’s standards—even so it made him frown.

“We did throw him off the roof,” he whispered, pensive. “What I really don’t understand, is why the ice cream van didn’t come. At least, we could have had that, right? Considering the storm, the burrow, the tree—”

“Peter—"

He blinked, eyes raising to his cousin's despairing expression.

"What is it?"

"We threw McGregor off the roof," Benjamin repeated, emphasizing each word. "If he didn’t like us before, what do you think he thinks of us now? What if Bea is not around?”

Peter’s face fell, ears going to rest against his back as looked from Benjamim to Bea’s legs.

“Do you think she will leave?” he queried and Bea chosing that exat moment to get up, open the door and exit the room, truly did nothing to put his fears to rest. “Because of what happened to the house? Won’t she fix it or something?”

“She has no place to stay… I—I don’t know.” Benjamim looked at Peter, pleading. “But this is not fair to the girls and it isn't fair to Bea. If we can’t return to the burrow, we have to find another place.”

“Right.”

Benjamim’s relieved sighed turned into downright incredulity when Peter looked up, resolute.

“So he has to go.”

“That isn’t remotely what I said!”

“We will get our garden back and move Bea into the house. She is family. She can live with us.”

Benjamin seemed to be having quite a hard time processing that.

“Don't—Don’t you need to be a McGregor to own the house?” he finally managed to say, shaking his head. “Also, how do you even intend to—?”

“Later. First, McGregor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, Peter is back on his crusade, while Benjamin tries to be the voice of reason—even if nobody listens to him. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has left kudos and comments, you are all awesome :) and I hope you liked this chapter too.
> 
> So next one, Thomas.


	3. Thomas

# Thomas

It was the sound of voices that first woke him up, the muffled whisper of a nearby conversation making his eyelids flutter without the words ever registering on his mind. Then, the cold, forcing him to curl over himself. And finally, a sharp sting to his left wrist, followed by a throbbing so intense that Thomas found himself pressing the arm against his chest, the whimper ready to get passed his lips turning into a strangled intake of breathe when the sound of footsteps leaving his side alerted him to the fact that he had not been alone.

Pain immediately turning into alarm, Thomas opened his eyes just in time to see the blade of light shinning from the corridor being snuffed out by the closing door. Reaching for the nearest lamp, only to have his body oppose itself to the idea with such vigor he ended up flinching away from the side table, he nevertheless threw the bed sheets back and moved to get out of bed. As strong as his determination to deal with whoever was inside was, however, it truly didn’t match to his body decision to remain _exactly_ where it was when, feet touching the floor, he found himself having the same exact reaction to the carpet he had had to the side table and became frozen on the spot, apparently not even judging the bed a safe enough place away from—

“Traps?”

The perplexed question was addressed to himself, as was the annoyed sentence that followed.

“And _rakes_.”

Thomas dropped his head, shaking it for a moment. The quiet snickering reaching his ears truly was not making this better.

“Get up.”

Right hand closing around his throbbing left wrist, Thomas let out a pained grunt as he got to his feet, an entirely new set of sore spots making themselves known leading him to again search the room, apparently expecting something quite alarming to jump at him when his back was turned.

_This is silly._

There was an intruder in the _adjoining_ room not in this one. He was alone and there were no traps, or rakes, or—

Thomas found himself closing his eyes in exasperation. Now, it was _wheelbarrows._

—lurking behind the furniture. Everything—from the Underground softly shaking the building, to the familiar backdrop of muffled voices and rumbling cars just outside the rain beaten window—was as it should be. As for the room, it was clean and exactly as he had left it. Or, at least, so he thought up until the storm roaring outside exploded over the building in furious tones and the scar of light cutting the sky showed him what surrounded him, shattering the illusion into a million pieces.

“This is not London.”

There were no cars driving by.

No Underground running below.

No side street, or crowds, or voices—

…

 _Voices_ —

It felt as if a cold blanket had been wrapped around him.

He could hear— _  
_

Thomas rushed towards the wardrobe, throwing its doors open only to run right back to look under the bed and then burst inside the bathroom, a moment later he was back, searching every single place he could think of as panic began setting at the base of his stomach.

He was alone.

There was no one here.

And yet he had heard it. He _knew_ he had heard it. Voices. A conversation. Coming from inside an _empty_ room.

“I am losing my mind.”

And he was retreating, attention running up and down the furniture until his back hit one of the bedposts and his right hand closed around the carved wood, holding on to it, not letting go even as he went to sit on the floor.

There was a plea ready to leave his lips, but the person it concerned to had long been dead and from the moment she was gone there hadn’t been anyone for him to rely on but himself.

“Calm down.”

And a sad excuse for comfort that was.

“Last time this happened. When was the last time this happened—?”

He might have stood there for a long time, trying to coach an answer out of the fog that had filled his mind, or maybe it was just a few seconds. It mattered not. The moment the answer hit him so did a wave of anger and he was up, attention flying around the room.

“ _Harrod’s_. Nigel Bannermen. Tape recorder.”

And if is former colleague had to aspire to be called a moron, original thinker was beyond his reach altogether.

“This is a prank.”

He had not been the first—or last, it seemed—to plan something like this. Every time Thomas had "heard" voices was because someone had thought it would be a heck of a good laugh!

"There is _something_ here."

It took a second for Thomas to dislodge his hand from the bedpost and advance towards his chosen target. The balcony. Opening its doors, bare feet sinking into the cold water as he marched into the storm, he found the triumphant exclamation that crossed his lips dying the same instant—and not because the balcony, much like everything else, was empty, but because of what he saw just beyond the garden’s wall.

Whatever he had heard no longer mattered. His deep held distaste for Nigel Bannermen was out like a flame. Thomas had turned, already half running, his attention still so stuck to what he could make out through the rain that he was blind to the opening room door and the figure appearing from within the light—a figure into which he crashed. The room's stone floor and his wet feet did the rest. Next thing he knew his back had hit the carpet and the figure with which he had collided had let out a horrified exclamation, getting to her knees at his side.

“I'm so sorry! Did I hurt you?”

He knew this voice. He also knew the woman now cupping his face with both hands no matter how disheveled she was.

“Bea?”

“You remember me?! You—! You are _freezing_.”

In no way did it compare to how cold that _“You remember me?”_ made him feel or the fact that that wasn’t remotely important right now. He was pointing outside, beyond the swaying door and the roaring storm, towards the wreckage he had spotted on the ground.

“Were you inside?”

Taking the patchwork quilt she had around her shoulders to put it around his, Bea followed his gesture, looking in her home’s direction, the way her hands went to run over her arms, calling his attention to the scratchs there. It made his stomach sink.

“You are hurt.”

“Hurt?" Bea's confusion brought her back inside, eyes falling on the elbow Thomas was inspecting and dismissing the damage the same instant. "That was—Nevermind. I wasn't inside. I was here, looking for you. I found you out cold on one of the plant beds. What happened?”

Talk about all those sore spots he was feeling choosing that exact moment to jerk his memory into action. Also, to give him details as to the reason he had been looking around in fear of being ambushed with rakes and traps. Those damned _pests_! The fence! They had wired the electricity running through the circuit to the doors! To the house’s metal piping! The instant he got onto the roof—!

“The roof?” Bea echoed, fingers no longer running through his hair. Truly, he had no idea how much of that he had allowed to be blurted out, but the light making its way inside from the corridor was enough to see she had lost all her color. “You fell from the _roof_?”

And now she was feverishly looking through her pockets, fishing out her mobile phone, attention split between turning his head in every possible direction and giving the device a remarkably threatning look.

“The only time I need this thing to work, it—!”

The balcony door was sent crashing against the wall. Jumping to his feet before the wind could finish its job and break the glass, Thomas went to close it. Fighting with the door for a moment, he turned to find Bea moving to sit on the armchair, still glaring holes into her mobile phone. His attention going from her to her home and back to her, Thomas ended up taking his robe out of the support on the room door and dropping to his knees in front of her.

“Here.”

Attention going from the mobile phone to his offer, Bea smiled.

“I am fine.”

"I beg to differ, there's water dripping from your hair.”

“You need it more than I do.”

“I have the stitched-together piece of countryside to keep me warm.”

“I swear I will wrestle you into that robe.”

“That really won't work.” The way she actually seemed to be weighing her chances made him smile, then cringe at what he could feel rapidly overtaking his mind. His tone was visible uncomfortable when he spoke. “If you don't take it, I will keep insisting for hours. Believe me, I have done it more times than I can count.”

Bea blinked, seemingly understanding what he meant and taking the robe from his hands. Seeing her get her arms through the sleeves, Thomas dropped his head.

"Sorry."

Not even her dumbfounded _"What for?"_ could get him to stop facing the carpet. His next query was apparently addressed to the golden pattern.

“What will you do?”

He shouldn't have asked that. Her voice visibly saddened.

“I haven’t thought about it," she admitted. "Maybe move into town? I—I don’t know.”

“Would you want to stay with me?”

Why _—why_ must he always let his mouth get away from his head?! That was all sorts of wrong!

“Not with me with me!" Thomas exclaimed. "Here. In the house. Not that I don’t want you with me!”

 _It's getting worse!_ And either Bea had not heard half of it or she had somehow understood what he meant.

“Won’t I be imposing on you?”

“Imposing?" Wait—Had she—? Was she actually considering it? "No! Of course, you won't impose! I can move downstairs, you can take this room. It's comfortable and most of the furniture is empty anyway. You will have amazing natural light to paint. Bathroom is the door on the right. Balcony up front and _—Why would I sound like I’m selling it?_ ”

The exasperated side note made Bea chuckle.

“Was that Mr. McGregor? From _Harrod’s_?” she queried, playfully. Risking a glance her way, Thomas found her giving him a fond smile. “He's in real estate now?”

“He’s versatile.”

“I have noticed." Looking around, she sighed. "Keep your room. If you would be fine downstairs, I will be too.”

And she leaned into him, closing her arms around his neck, head going to rest on his shoulder. It took him so by surprise he was left standing there, like a scarecrow, not knowing what to do with his arms.

“You scared me.” Her voice was so quiet Thomas could barely hear her despite how close her lips were to his ear. “You scared me so much. I _thought—_ What could you possibly be doing on the roof?”

“There were some... electrical _hazards_.”

 _Vermin related electrical hazards_ , he elaborated mentally, attention going immediately back to her.

“I can fix it.”

The corridor light choosing that precise moment to flicker and plunge the house into darkness made Thomas roll his eyes at what truly was a magnificent piece of timing.

“Not the power lines. Your house.”

Bea shook her head, hair rubbing against his neck. She was shivering. For some reason, he didn’t think it was from the cold. The minute he remembered to close his arms around her, he was rather sure it wasn’t.

“I really can fix it.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

Actually, he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That animated sequence really served as an inspiration, but more importantly, Thomas is here! And those were the rabbits he was hearing, of course.
> 
> As always, I hope you all liked the chapter :)
> 
> So next one, either Thomas or Bea. Not sure which one yet.


	4. A Bubbly Situation, Part 1

# A Bubbly Situation

(Day 1, Part 1) 

####  **Benjamin**

The door whined as it opened, the quiet sound, turned deafening in the silence that had descended over the manor, sent the brown rabbit that had been peeking from behind it running for cover inside the room, his plump form diving right under the nearest side table and going to cower against the wall, ears low and nose twitching, waiting for the residing McGregor to come and investigate the noise.

_We are caught. We are caught-caught-caught!_

Seconds passed.

Then minutes.

Managing to move away from the wall, Benjamin stepped carefully back into the open, the lack of footsteps or voices or anything else that might indicate anyone was home, making him approach the door and stick his nose outside. The sudden boldness, however, was not at all related with courage, but with the smell rising up the stairs.

 _Pancakes with applesauce,_ he noted, dreamily, the latter distracting him from his present mission far more than the former. _With just a hint of cinnamon and honey._

Also, and if not more important, was he smelling carrots? Like in freshly peeled and cut carrots? Like in–

_Carrot juice…  
_

“Benjamin!”

The muffled male voice had come from under the bed, more exactly from behind the pair of does now sticking their heads under the blanket.

“Did you find anything?”

“Sweet delicious feast of the gods,” Benjamin sighed, the confused _“What?”_ immediately rising in Peter’s voice making him inhale all the more deeply. “I think it’s in the kitchen.”

Peter groaned. Next moment something was wedging itself between Benjamin and the door jamb, a pair of brown ears all but blocking his view of the corridor.

“Is he outside? No? Did anyone see him _leeeee—!!!_ ”

Peter’s question turned into a high screech, his ears disappearing from Benjamin’s view as if he had just been sucked out from his side making him turn to find Flopsy and Mopsy dragging his cousin across the room by the legs.

“Come on, girls, enough of this. Let me—!”

An _‘uff’_ crossed Peter’s lips, Mopsy going to sit on his back effectively leaving him pinned to the floor.

“One reason,” Peter pleaded from his very undignified position. “I just ask for one reason.”

“Five reasons.”

“Five?!”

Not shying away at all from using him as a stool, Mopsy took a deep breath going to point at herself, Flopsy, Benjamin and Cottontail—presently in the balcony—in rapid succession and with this wicked twinkle on her eyes.

“Lookout. Lookout. Lookout. Lookout.” She ended up pointing a triumphant finger on Peter’s direction. “Hero. So you do the hero stuff and we do the looking out.”

Peter let his head hit the floor, looking in Benjamin’s direction.

“Help.”

Caught chuckling, Benjamin stuck his nose back through the crack between the door and the doorframe.

“I am monitoring the corridor.”

“Very convincing!” Peter tried to wedge himself from under his sister with no success. “Are we alone, or not?”

Stepping slightly to the side so that Flopsy could join him at the door, Benjamin went on to survey the entryway, looking over the stonework and the neat living room on the ground floor, hears trying to find any noise.

“I think we are alone,” Flopsy finally said, glancing towards Peter and Mopsy. “How did they manage to leave without waking us up? I mean humans. Good eyes, deaf ears, always stomping around—”

“This McGregor seems to have really good ears,” Benjamin pointed out, with a shiver. “Looked like a fox last night. Had he gotten to the bed five seconds earlier—”

A tense silence followed. Trading glances, last night apparently still far too vivid in their minds to warrant any sort of discussion, the four of them went on to stare at the floor.

To think they actually had been having a good time prior to that. Snickering at McGregor’s expecting them to jump at him from behind the furniture or for one more of their traps to be in place. That had been funny. Even Benjamin had to admit it. And then— _then_ it had turned terrifying, before it had ceased to be both those things all at once.

“What is he doing?”

Having been forced to flee their hideout under the bed, they had been sneaking their way back at that point, careful as not to make noise, all eyes firmly glued to the foot of the bed where McGregor’s form laid, sitting, one hand pressing his forehead, his unrelenting search of the room having met an abrupt end.

“That is weird.”

“No, it isn’t. He is lying in wait,” Peter sentenced, darkly, just as he lifted the bed’s blanket so that the rest of them could go back into hiding. “At any moment, he will pounce.”

But he hadn’t. In fact, he had stayed seated at the feet of the bed for such a long time that, at some point, the girls’ fear had been replaced by something else—something kinder and to which Cottontail had been the first to give voice to.

“Is he alright?”

“He doesn’t look alright,” Flopsy whispered, fingers pulling at her wool shawl. “Should we do something?”

“I’m the oldest—” Flopsy had rolled her eyes at that. “And I say—”

“I’m going to get Bea.”

Peter had reached out just in time to stop Cottontail from darting off.

“No, you aren’t,” he stated, gesturing towards the still form they could glimpse through the blanket. “He is obviously pretending.”

“There is no one here for him to pretend to, Peter.” Flopsy pointed out, all the while looking at her sisters for support and seeming clearly relieved for seeing not only Cottontail but also Mopsy nodding in agreement. “We have to get Bea.”

If only it was that easy to make Peter change his mind.

“All eyes on me. Cottontail.” Satisfied he had all of his sisters’ attention the instant Cottontail turned, Peter went on. “Do you remember that one time when Bea heard us?”

The query was met with three does tilting their heads and frowning at him, something to which Peter reacted by apparently asking for help to the mattress above.

“We were staying at her house,” he tried to refresh their memories. “It was night, she fell asleep on the couch, so we started talking—Remember?”

“Oh!”

The exclamation, making Peter shushing and gesticulating feverishly for the three of them to tone it down a notch, echoed under the bed, three does going to nod and trade excited glances amongst themselves, Peter seemingly forgotten.

“Was it when she thought someone was outside?” Flopsy queried in a whisper. “She looked like Mom every time Mr. Tod went out hunting.”

“Worse. It looked like we were under siege by a dozen foxes.”

“That was the coolest.”

Cottontail’s words made Peter take a deep breath.

“No, not the coolest. Normal reaction. Lock the doors. Secure the windows. Shrug it off. That—” He gestured towards McGregor, an old shadow appearing in his eyes. “Ten carrots that if we step closer he would grab at us and turn us all into pies.”

That had been enough to cut to the roots of the girls’ kind intentions and keep them all quiet and under the bed. It was enough even now, to make all of Benjamin’s misgivings bubble to the surface.

“Should we really stay here?”

“Of course, we should stay here,” Peter replied, turning to Mopsy despite his couch like state under her. “You have a good point, though. How did he leave without any of us—?”

A sudden wave of excitement filled Peter’s expression, in an instant, he had somehow managed to twist himself from under Mopsy and get back on his feet. Following him as Peter hoped to the balcony, they watched has he walked right passed Cottontail and jumped to the parapet.

“Maybe the reason we can’t find him is because the ice cream van came during the night!” He stated, raising his voice for the entire meadow to hear. “We are free! We got our garden! Our house! Our—!” He hit the parapet, belly down, paws firmly held over his mouth. “Or maybe he is just outside.” He whispered, lifting his paws slightly. “Little warning next time?”

Lying on the floor in very soldiery fashion, attention still very much in the garden and on the figure standing just outside Bea’s half-destroyed house, Cottontail raised her head to him, a deeply tenebrous look on her face.

“This is no rabbit’s land. Everyone for him or herself.” Silence followed, Peter’s incredulous expression making her give him a quick smile and a ‘sorry’, before jumping up, decided and energetic. “Are we going to raid the kitchen or what?”

“Not yet.” Dropping from the parapet and going back to his feet, Peter pulled the collar of his blue shirt. “First, we have to make ourselves presentable.”

“Wrong priorities, Peter.” Benjamin sighed, his ears nevertheless rising alongside Peter’s when Cottontail pointed all of their attention to Bea’s house and the figure appearing at the window, talking to McGregor who was still outside.

“Bea is there! She is in her house!”

“This is it, guys! Benjamin! Cottontail!” Peter gave the two remaining sisters a playful bow.  “Lookouts.”

And he was out before they could turn him from hero to stool again, bursting inside the bathroom and jumping on top of the rug so that he could make himself slide and turn.

“Cottontail! You—”

It seemed to cross his mind right in the mid of his triumphant parallel slide to the bathtub that he might have brought the wrong sister with him. Back hitting the shinning side of the tub, he tilted his head.

“Do you remember how Mom used to do it?” he asked her, turning to Benjamin. “Do you?”

Wrong sister or not, he definitely had got the wrong cousin.

“I have no—”

At his side, Cottontail had raised three fingers.

“Mom went with water, bubbly stuff and tossed everything, including ourselves, in.”

“Great! Benjamin, close the tub!”

Jumping up and sliding down the curved borders to do as instructed, Benjamin had to flee when Peter’s—

“Cottontail, the bubbly stuff!”

—made a cascade of white dust rain on top of him. Jumping up to help Peter open the taps, Benjamin glanced at the rapidly rising water, the certainty that he would rather be raiding the kitchen growing larger at every second.

“Are we sure we know what we are doing?”

Using his legs to turn his tap at an incredibly fast pace, Peter gave him one of his confident smiles.

“Come on! After the fence how hard can this be?”

 

####  **Bea**

“Anything?”

“Still nothing.”

“How about the ceiling light?”

Emerging from behind the painting she had just rolled and put inside one of the many plastic cylinders lying against the sofa, Bea walked down to the living room entrance, fingers closing over an extremely outdated light switch and pulling it to its upwards position. Attention going to the ceiling light only for it not to turn on, she tried the switch a few more times before going to test the one on the corridor. Upon having the same results, however, she walked to the open window, sticking her head outside to find Thomas seemingly trying to jerk the fuse box back to working order by the sheer intensity of his gaze.

“I think you are right about the power lines,” she told him, watching as Thomas made the fuse he had on his right hand spin on his fingers. “I mean, it is either that or every single light on the region has gone on strike. Do you have candles?”

“Candles?”

The word seemed to take a while to break through Thomas concentration and register on his mind. When it did, he went from glaring at the fuse box to frowning at the large manor on the other side of the field.

“Not that I recall. Mind you, I haven’t looked.”

Bea’s surprise come tumbling down her tongue before she could do anything to stop it.

“I thought you had gone over the entire house already.”

“I have been—” Thomas glanced her way, immediately going back to the refuge of the fuse box. “Distracted.”

Bea blinked. That was—She actually didn’t know what to say to that.

“Are you done?” Thomas queried, closing the fuse box.

“Almost.”

Going back inside the living room only to hear a very aggravated—

“No cell phone coverage. No electricity. It was enough to walk out of civilization, there was no need to go straight for the 19th Century.”

—rising through the window, Bea couldn’t help but chuckle when Thomas, seeming to grow aware of what he had said not just out loud but just as he walked by the window, entered the house, appearing at the living room door with an extremely strained smile on his lips.

“Which is charming and quite pleasant.”

Storing another of the paintings and scribbling the title on the casing, Bea put it on top of the pile resting on the couch, walking towards a half-blocked bookcase lying behind a pile of boxes, and, upon struggling to get those out of the way, reaching inside to take out a small container and put it into Thomas’ hands.

“Candles.”

“And they have wicks! How wonderful!”

That hadn’t been convincing at all.

“Come on, it won’t be that bad. Candles are great. Warm. They have this great ambiance—”

“Not to mention they are a potential fire hazard,” Thomas offered not at all assuaged by her words and turning towards one of the many boxes he himself had packed to carefully wedge the one holding the candles between a group of books and a paintbrush case. “Can I take these?”

Glancing from him to the boxes he was pointing at—which included several heavy ones with all sort of painting supplies—and then back to how careful he was being with moving around, Bea gave him a decided nod.

“Give me a moment. I will help you with those.”

Going back to the paintings she was still disassembling and storing—and she truly should start doing this when they dried, this whole thing was taking far too long!—she found herself stealing glances at Thomas all the same, a soft smile going through her lips when he leaned over one of the many boxes occupying the table and started going over the paint cans.

“Out of curiosity,” he said, frowning as he read the labels. “How did you store these? Color? Size? Alphabetical?”

“Is stacked on top of each other a valid answer?”

Turning towards the window with a can on each hand, a slightly exasperated whisper of—

“Deep carrot orange. Frostbite… Who names these things? Oh, they have numbers!”

—going passed his lips, Thomas went back to her, a very surprise look on his face.

“You don’t have a filling system? How long does it take to find what you want?”

“A while.” Making the last staples holding the painting she was going over jump, Bea pulled it off the wood frame, rapidly rolling it. “But you really don’t have to worry about it. It is not that much of a hassle and anyway—”

She stopped, Thomas going right back to the box to pile its contents, making her shake her head at herself. She was being silly. Utterly silly.

“You want to organize it,” she teased, fondly, looking around boxes pilled everywhere on the living room. “All of this mess.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“You are being sweet.”

“I am not sweet. I can get the entirety of _Harrod_ ’s to vouch for that,” Thomas chuckled, glancing through the open living room window, the fond look he gave manor on the other side of the field surprising even Bea. “If you want messy, you should have seen the state that old monster was in when I arrived.”

“State?”

“Food all over the ceiling and floor. A pig on the living room couch—”

A _what_ on the—?

“You are joking. That old man kept the place implacable,” she muttered, flabbergasted. “He adored the house.”

A strange expression went over Thomas face just as he took the last can out of the box, thoughtfulness replaced with childlike excitement.

“Preferences?”

“I don’t know. I usually just put them in storage.”

“You can always change your mind later.”

He seemed even more excited by the thought she would change her mind.

“Maybe hue?”

“Hue… Hue…”

Frowning at one of the cans’ labels, Thomas opened a second box, a new wave of excitement making him turn to her.

“You have a petrol lamp?” he queried. “An empty petrol lamp. Old. Do these things actually work?”

Closing the painting inside the protective cover, the empty wood structure being set against several others behind the sofa, Bea raised her attention towards the overflowing table to find Thomas going over the petrol lamp. Immediately, her heart skipped a beat.

“That was Mrs. McGregor’s.”

Thomas jumped on the spot, turning to her with an urgency that was snuffed out like a candle the moment comprehension hit him.

“You mean his wife.”

Bea didn’t know if that was relief or disappointment on his face. Maybe, it was both. And the smile with which he was trying to cover it was not convincing at all.

“He was married. What happened to her?”

“She died.”

“That’s a relief.”

Scribbling the name of the painting on the side of the storage container, Bea glanced up to find Thomas pressing his forehead in clear exasperation.

“That—I was worried I forced her to move out.”

_Oh…_

“No. She died a year or so ago. Not that he cared all that much. I mean, with that twat of a husband it is no surprise at all but, Mrs. McGregor—” A pang of guilt hit Bea when no other name came to her mind. “She was one of those grandmother types, you know?” It occurred to her a moment too late that there was no way he could know. “She came here every day. Dropping vegetables. Soup. Offering to iron my clothes.” Bea made a gesture to point towards the petrol lamp with the marker, only to have it slip from her fingers and disappear among the boxes. “She lend me that thing when some airhead decided to celebrate New Year’s Eve by shooting the power lines.” _Great…_ Where had the marker gone to? “We were in the dark an entire week.”

“A _week_?!”

Glancing at Thomas who, seeing her on all fours on the floor, had moved away from the paint cans to help her search for the marker, now giving the ceiling light a truly horrified look, Bea was jumping back into topic before she saw him making a beeline for London.

“She was a sweetheart. Are you sure you are from his side of the family?”

“I—Yes—Why shouldn’t I be?”

So much for being smooth.

“She would have loved having you around.”

“Would she?” There was something _harsh_ in his voice that forced Bea to look up again. “I can already imagine—”

Whatever was left of Thomas words turned into a pained groaned when, leaning to reach under a support table, he was gripped by a strong shiver, going to grab hold on to the back of the sofa, a sickly pallor spreading over his face. Jumping up, finding herself holding his arm out of fear he would collapse, Bea look around.

 “Sit. You have to sit.”

And the way the entire living room was filled to the brick with stuff really was not helping with that. There were painting supplies on the chairs, canvas seating on the couch, half her clothes still lying outside the bag and–

“Kitchen.”

“I’m fine.”

He didn’t sound fine. In fact, he didn’t sound remotely like himself. And pulling him to the kitchen, getting him to sit on the chair in front of the one she was taking, she didn’t know what worried her more, the willingness with which he had complied to everything she said the night before or the fact that he seemed to be going down the same path right now.

“I am not at all convinced I shouldn’t take you to a doctor.”

She could swear he had turned even paler and reaching out to cup his face, to pull his head down so that it would rest on her shoulder—fingers then proceeding to ran distractedly down the brown locks—she was so focused on that thought, she almost missed his next words. And the small voice in which he spoke.

“What—What for?”

“You could have something broken.”

“Nothing broken. I just—didn’t think that through. I’m fine.”

“You aren’t fine. This isn’t fine. You fell of the roof!”

“I’m alive?”

Bea shook her head, going to rest it protectively against his.

“You are impossible.”

“I have been told. By every single family member, friend and co-worker I ever had.”

“Did you go around falling off roofs with them too?”

Considering how exhausted he had sounded just now, that her good-natured scolding actually made him laugh was a relief, even if the long silence that answered her next question wasn’t—

“What else did they say?”

—nor was his answer and the way he visibly clammed up.

“Nothing worth mentioning. Is that a new one?”

_A new one?_

Bea turned in the direction Thomas was pointing her to, feeling her stomach twist itself into a knot and not at all for the same reasons it was doing that before.

There, resting on the kitchen counter, looking redder and possibly even worse under the daylight than it had the night before, was one of her paintings. The one from the day before. She had forgotten about it… She had forgotten to hide—!

“That is quite beautiful.”

Stealing a glance of the man still resting his head on her shoulder, expecting some degree of mockery to be present if not in his words at the very least in his expression, Bea found herself biting her lips when she found sincerity instead.

“You—You think so?”

“Curious, I don’t usually like strong colors.” He frowned, studying the painting. “Leafs floating down a stream?”

It took all she had not to reach for the kitchen towel she had on the oven’s door and toss it over the painting out of sheer embarrassment.

It was not remotely _that_.

It would be beautiful if it was.

As things stood, however, she seemed to have managed to make the sky look like a fluid and to have trees sticking to it. Worst of all, she couldn’t find it in herself to tell him that. Of all things to be tongue tied about, she—!

A soft whimper coming from near her ear tossed Bea right into the present. Eyes going back to Thomas to find him pressing his left wrist, she found herself going over the very bad looking bruise running around it, a deep frown on her face.

“How did you get this from falling?”

Green eyes darted up, boring into hers, the torn look he was giving her—one that seemed to imply he was discussing with himself if he should even speak—leaving Bea more confused than anything else.

“What happened?”

And it was gone. That look. The doubt. All replaced by a gentle smile that had more of sadness than anything else.

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

Why did that hurt?

“I wouldn’t believe me either—”

Thomas fell silent for a long while. Then, eyes narrowing, he slipped away from her grasp, an absolutely incredulous look filling his face as he went to stand, still sickly pale, looking outside the window.

“What on earth?”

He was out of the kitchen before she could do anything to stop him and when Bea understood what he had seen, he was long gone. 

 

####  **Benjamin**

“Peter?” Mopsy’s voice came from behind the closed door, and insistent knocking rising alongside her words. “What is going on?”

“Nothing! Everything is under control!”

“We can see foam coming out the window, Peter!” She threw at him and, even through the closed door, it was not that difficult to imagine her with her paws on her hips, one feet thumping on the floor. “There is water everywhere!”

“All part of the plan!”

Lying sprawled on top of the bathtub’s right tap, Benjamin and Peter traded a nervous glance, the thick wall of scented bubbles blocking their view of the entire bathroom, getting them back into frantically trying to put the faucet handle back in place.

“How did this happen?! I didn’t know this could happen!”

Water was squirming everywhere. The jet blasting out of the fitting from which the handle had come lose hitting the ceiling and making a cold rain fall on them, drenching them to the bones without any need to step into the deluge of water and bubbles cascading over the bathtub’s sides.

“What is going on, Peter?” Mopsy insisted, still knocking on the door. “Benjamin! What did he do?”

“It is just a minor setback!” Benjamin tried to assuage her, his and Peter’s efforts to screw the faucet back on only managing to leave them even more drenched. “We will be done in a second!”

He turned back to Peter, seeing him gesturing around to avoid being swallowed by the bubbles right before Cottontail’s voice made both of them look up.

“This is so cool! Do you think it would hold me?”

“Don’t—!”

Too late. The sharp thud and splash echoing in the bathroom were enough to tell them Cottontail had jumped from the window, dived right through the bubbles and hit the floor.

“I am alright!” she announced, excitedly, the sound of water splashing coming alongside her voice. “One less rib!”

“Where did I go wrong with her?” Peter groaned, his momentary lost of focus making the jet of water hit him right in the face.  “Where did I go wrong with this?!”

More and more water was cascading off the bathtub, dense foam hitting their faces as they struggled to close the water tap, Mopsy’s exasperated voice coming from the other side of the door.

“I’m serious here! What is going on?! I have water coming from under the door!”

“Keep draining it!”

“We have to empty the tube, Peter!” Benjamin pointed out. “Before we flood the entire house!”

“Good idea. Grab my legs! I will dive in.”

“Are you mad?!”

Splashing coming from room made both of them turn, Flopsy’s voice going to replace Mopsy on talking to them through the closed door.

“McGregor is coming back!”

“Back?! What do you mean he is coming back?!  Why would he be coming back?!”

“Do you want me to lip read?”

“No! Don’t lip read! Help us!” Peter pleaded, only to jerk his head up at the implications of what he had just said. “No! Ignore what I said! Don’t open the—!”

The lock clicked, the water that had been mounting inside tossing the door open and rushing outside, alongside a massive wave of foam, the still overflowing bathtub only adding to the disaster when Benjamin, Peter and Cottontail were caught on the downpour, floating alongside the pieces of fabric Mopsy had been using to dry the water before being grabbed and pulled away from the current—their clothes following the bed’s blankets as they disappeared through the door.

“Catch them before he comes inside!”

Jumping inside the foam that was now raising to cover the entire room, paws diving into the water, they jumped into the hallway, splashing down the corridor while completely blind until the sound of the front door opening send them fleeing under the cabinet, squeezing themselves under it. Or in Benjamin’s case—

“Help!”

_Getting stuck._

Peter and Cottontail turned back grabbing him and pulling, the sound of footsteps entering the lower floor making their noses twitch.

“I know you are here, Rabbit!”

“I think he is inside.”

“That is not important right now,” Peter groaned, one foot against the nearest cabinet leg, hands around Benjamin’s left arm. “Pull. Pull!”

“You must think this is really funny!” McGregor growled, voice echoing in the damp entrance. “A barrel of laughs!”

“No, we don’t!” Benjamin whimpered, his hind quarters still very much stuck outside despite Peter and Cottontail efforts to get him unstuck. “We are not laughing!”

“So, tell me, what was the plan this time?” McGregor was climbing the stairs, voice growing closer, turning louder, angrier with each step. “To flood the house, stick the electric wires in the water and wait for me to step on it?!”

This time, it was Peter that stopped pulling, ears turning towards the voice, a contemplative expression on his face.

“Is it just me or that is actually a good idea?”

“Focus, Peter!”

“Right!” He pulled at Benjamin again, only to, being meet with failure, glance at the general direction of the stairs—now a pink wall of bubbles—alarm making him turn right back to them. “Emergency measures! Cottontail, pull on three. Benjamin, suck that belly in! One, two—!”

With a _plup_ , Benjamin finally managed to get under the cabinet, falling on his two cousins and sending them against the wall just as a pair of shoes appeared right next to the cabinet.

“Well, I have bad news for you! There is no power for you to play with! No second round!”

“It is the third, actually,” Peter whispered, hopping closer to the front of the cabinet, only to see the legs they could glimpse through the foam stop at the splashing noise he made. “He can’t have heard that! Not with the water going down the—”

“Where are _you_?”

“I think he did,” Benjamin shivered, pulling both his cousin back towards the wall and only allowing them to move when McGregor’s shoes disappeared inside the wall of bubbles.

“This my house! I will not be thrown out by some countryside rats that—!” McGregor’s voice gradually lost both its vigor and its edge, turning into a soft and weary whisper. “Why do I keep talking to them? They don’t even understand.”

“Shows what he knows,” Peter stated, victoriously turning to his family. “We have to get outside, find our clothes and—Where are Flopsy and Mopsy?”

Benjamin turned, eyes falling on Cottontail who too was turning and looking around the bubble free underside of the cabinet for her sisters.

“They were right behind me.”

The three of them jumped forward searching the wall of bubbles before trading horrified glances.

“How did we lose them?”

“What do we do?”

“You? Nothing. Stay put under the cabinet. Me and Benjamin—Me and Benjamin, we will—”

Visibly at a loss of what to do, Peter ran along the entire length of the cabinet. Immediately following behind him and jumping outside, Benjamin stopped at his side, moving his arms to break the bubble wall around them.

“Do you have a plan?” he queried and not all his shivering had to do with his wet fur. “Tell me you have got a plan.”

“I—” Peter turned to him, tilting his head on confusion. “How did you manage to get out?”

Both of them looked back towards the path they had opened in the bubbles, the side-opening leading under the cabinet—with no woodwork for them to squeeze under—making both of them glance at each other—

“Well, that was embarrassing.”

“Tell me about it.”

—and go back to follow their target.

“Quick!” Peter whispered urgently, jumping through the bubbles to land right on the collapsing path McGregor’s advance had opened and point at his legs. “Get the legs!”

“You have a plan? Tell me this is a plan!”

“This is the _‘The taller they are’_ routine we had with the old guy! Aim for the—”

_Shoelaces._

There were no shoelaces and paws closing over nothing, the legs they had been aiming for getting away from them again, Benjamin glanced at Peter, finding him looking rather taken aback by this development.

“Well, he is far more clever than I thought,” his cousin murmured, attention stuck to McGregor as he moved further inside the house, his low _‘What all are all these bubbles even for? Camouflage for traps?’_ making Peter’s ears rise. “And full of great ideas!”

“That aren't helping us, Peter!”

“Should I give him a wet wedgie ?”

“Far too risky,” Peter declared, before turning to the speaker in disbelief. “What are you doing here?”

Paws crossed in front of her chest, a large block of bubbles threatening to fall on her at any moment, Cottontail all but ignored the question, eyes stuck to McGregor’s back.

“He sounds really angry,” she pointed out, not that she seemed remotely scared by that. But then again, she never was. Not even when she was soaking wet and right in the middle of enemy territory. “I don’t remember him sounding angry before.”

“Can you blame him?” Benjamin whispered, looking in every possible direction and being met with bubbles and more bubbles. “Where is Bea? Shouldn’t she be with him?”

Again Cottontail didn’t seem to be listening, to any of it, instead giving McGregor’s back a decided nod. The block of bubbles that had been over her choosing that exact moment to fall on her, left her voice rising from within pink foam.

“How many ribs do humans have?”

“Ribs? What do you want to know that fo-OOOH! That’s it! That’s genius!” Peter turned to them, pulling Cottontail from inside the bubbles and joining all three of their heads in a conspiratory circle. “I will sneak attack him and while he is distracted, you two grab the girls and go outside. You find Bea and be innocent rabbits, I will take care of the rest!”

And he was off, leaving Benjamin and Cottontail to trade confused glances.

“Did you understand anything?”

“He lost me.”

Seeing Peter disappear through the foam, following on his footsteps while remaining carefully close to the wall, Benjamin and Cottontail entered the room, ears up, careful not to reveal themselves.

_Bed to the right._

They could see its dark contours cut against the light coming from the balcony, that and those of something quite tall that was right on their path, carefully testing the floor as it moved through the bubbles. Getting passed the pair of legs, Benjamin and Cottontail had to flee not to be stepped on when a loud crash echoed in the room and McGregor turned, the grin on his face visibly through the crashing foam over them as he looked at something that was, without doubt, Peter.

“Hello, Rabbit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter is here! I am striving to bring bigger ones to you all, so here is the first that goes with that line :) I hope you liked it (and that it made you laugh a little)! Next time, lets see what madness goes down in a manor that is rapidly filling with bubbles.
> 
> This chapter was beta-ed by Jojo1112, who is awesome, big thank you to her!
> 
> Thank you also to everyone who has left comments :) - W.


	5. A Bubbly Situation, Part 2

# A Bubbly Situation

**(Day 1, Part 2)**

####  **Peter**

The shards of the lamp he had just kicked snapped under McGregor’ shoes as Peter started to run, wet paws making him slid and squid and toss just about everything around him to the floor before he finally managed to hop off the bedside table and into the bubble covered bed, the human’s fingers still grazing his fur, his hand slamming hard against the table when Peter escaped from right under it.

_Too slow, fox!_

Bubbles popped at his passage, the soft mattress jerking up and down sending Peter a few centimeters into the air as he dashed faster and faster across it, the sound of McGregor footsteps following on his awake—their splashing and thumping letting him know exactly where the human was and what he was planning.

_Trying to get me on the other side of the bed._

It was so simple it almost made him chuckle.

_We will see about that!_

“Peter!”

Already prepared to jump off the bed and dart under McGregor’s legs the moment he appeared—not something he hadn’t done before!—Peter came to such a sudden stop at that calling he actually fell on his nose.

Getting back up, ears turning, eyes surveying the naked mattress and the bubbles spread over it, he finally managed to detect Benjamin’s dark ears breaking through the foam towards the head of the bed.

“Peter!”

He was running again, going to drop next to his cousin, the still exploding water in the bathroom hiding both their voices.

“Did you find Flopsy and Mopsy?” he queried, ears still full of the noise of McGregor’s footsteps. “Are they outside?”

“They were not under the bed, Peter! Cottontail went off into the balcony, she—”

Peter got up on his hind legs, a hand closing over one of the bed posts sending Benjamin fleeing back under the bed just as Peter himself turned to dart over it and the collapsing bubbles gave away to the rest of McGregor, lips pressed and fingers like claws and about to jump on the bed.

“Get back here, Rabbit!”

The mattress all but disappeared from under him, the bed groaned, snapped and whined and then the mattress suddenly returned, jumping back in place and hitting his legs and that same moment he was off. Shooting out of the sea of foam and into the sky, bed posts flying by him, McGregor’s hand failing to grab him, the room opening around him in all its glory and—! And then gravity remembered rabbits weren’t naturally airborne. No matter how much they kept moving their legs while flying. And Peter was plunging, falling, crashing into the bubbles and _—Was that Benjamin?_

“ _Moveeeeeeeeeeee_!”

**_CRASH!_ **

It was touchdown and they were rolling, a mess of paws and tangled ears tumbling across the room, water splashing around them, until they hit the far off wall.

“What—How—?” Benjamin’s incredulity as he and Peter struggled to get rid of each other had seemingly made him forget where they stood. “Did you just flew?!”

“It doesn’t matter! Run!”

McGregor’s shoes appeared behind them, foam crashing on the wake of his appearance, popping bubbles revealing not only Peter but Benjamin’s as well.

“More.”

It had sounded like a growl that, and again the human lurched forward, again failing to grab them, the momentum making him collide with the wall when the fleeing rabbits dived under his legs, leaving him to disappear inside the bubbles—only to force them to squid to a stop, panic putting an end to Peter’s chuckling when he appeared in front of them again, forcing them to jump into a denser patch of bubbles and what they hoped was the direction of the bed.

“I had forgotten how fast he is!” Peter exclaimed, Benjamin running and panting at his side. “The old guy—!”

“Peter!”

Cottontail’s voice and then Cottontail herself broke through the foam, jumping alongside them into the safety of the bubble free underside of the bed–Alone.

“You didn’t find them?”

Getting up on two legs, front paws trying to get some water out of her dripping fur and ears, Cottontail shook her head.

“Not in the balcony or the wardrobe,” she stated. “I can’t find them.”

There was little that could scare Peter half as much as that last phrase did.

“What do you mean you can’t find them? Why can’t anybody find them?!”

Peter stepped closer to her, grabbing her shoulders and then looking outside, an old memory immediately casting a dark shadow over his thoughts.

“What did _he_ do with them?”

“McGregor was outside when they disappeared, Peter,” Benjamin whispered, in a pacifying tone. “He has nothing to do with—OW!”

“That’s it! You are a genius!”

“I am?” Benjamin queried, rubbing the place Cottontail had just enthusiastically punched. “Also… _ow!_ ”

“Sorry,” she said, expression twisting in sympathy, before releasing herself from Peter. “I think I know where they are! Peter, listen to me!”

Being snapped out of his thoughts, Peter turned back to her, studying her face, hopeful.

“You do? Where?”

The bed whined over their heads, wood snapping loudly as something heavy walked across it, forcing the three of them to look up.

“Is that him?”

A new louder snap and McGregor’s head appeared on one of the sides, angrily inhaling when his eyes fell on the three of them.

“Now, it’s an infestation.”

And he disappeared, Peter immediately pushing Cottontail to the side and out of harm’s way.

“Go. Get out of here.”

She did so just as McGregor jumped back to the floor, water splashing around his shoes. Not that he gave the rabbit darting passed his legs a second of his attention when Peter himself jumped after her, darting off from under the bed in the opposite direction, Benjamin following after him.

“Looking for something, Rabbit?” McGregor snapped from behind them. “Did one of your traps fail to go off?!”

Water rushing around their legs as they ran, bubbles popping at their passage, Peter looked back.

“Paranoid much?”

“And whose fault is that?!” Benjamin exclaimed from behind him. “What are we going to do? Tell me this is a plan!”

Peter threw one of his charming smiles back.

“You know when you have a plan but then things change and then you have to think of another plan?”

“What does that even mean?!”

“This isn’t so much a plan as it is improvising.”

“ _What?!_ ”

“And I am going to defeat him. I have done it before!”

“No, you haven’t!”

A pillow crashed in front of them, blocking their path, forcing them to flee and–Truly, this was about as good an opportunity as he would get.

Without hesitation, the armchair Bea had brought up last night appearing at his left, Peter jumped on it, took balance and aimed right at McGregor’s chest as the latter broke out of the bubbles.

“What are you doing?!”

Benjamin’s incredulous shriek fell to the background. McGregor was stumbling back, struggling to dislodge Peter from his shirt and to get back his balance all in one go. It was to no avail and the moment his back hit one of the bedposts, Peter was on the floor, pulling one of his legs from under him, fingers crossed that he wouldn’t hit the bed—which he unfortunately managed to do by grabbing onto to the bedposts and—

_Yikes!_

McGregor was back up again and with a vengeance. Or perhaps a pillow. At this point they looked incredibly similar from Peter’s point of view and he was running. Fleeing across the room, going under the bed as McGregor went over it, entering the bathroom and them coming out, pillow hammering behind him, hitting every single place his paws touched until finally they were on the bed, the groaning structure creaking under them as they run up and down it, wood snapping and cracking and–

A voice rose up from the damp hallway, echoing over the thundering of water.

“Thomas?”

 

####  **Thomas**

They stood as if frozen. Both Thomas and the long eared pest he had been hunting on top of the bed. The voice rising from outside the room making them turn to stare, wide-eyed and mortified, in the general direction of the room’s bubble covered entrance.

“Are you inside?”

Green eyes met brown. Mute panic settling in their countenances before dread did and the bed gave one last thunderous wail, taking both man and rabbit down with it.

“Thomas!”

Trying to untangle himself both from the furry menace lying tail up between his lower legs and the V-shaped mattress in the middle of which he was lodged, Thomas rubbed the back of his head, the thought that this was actually his fault—he for sure had known the state the bed was in from the moment he had first slept on it, no need to stress test it by jumping on top—being rapidly set aside by the anxious note in Bea’s next words telling him he had somehow, _someway_ just failed to heed her calling more than a handful of times.

“Thomas, I swear if you don’t answer—! Are you alright?!”

“Never been better!”

The answer had been given in a half-strangled voice given his effort to crawl out of the jaws of the half destroyed bed and yet in the damp, moist, bubble-filled manor it echoed like thunder—as did Bea’s relieved sigh upon hearing him speak.

“Stop scaring me like that!” she snapped, words still tremulous. “What is going on?”

“Just a mishap!”

“There is water cascading down the stairway. I am up to my knees in it,” Bea told him, just as Thomas leaned forward, reaching out for the upside-down rabbit lodged between his legs. “This is more than a mishap. What happened?”

Yanking the rabbit out its undignified position, Thomas pulled it to his eye level.

“Care to explain that to her?” he queried, eyebrows raised and a smirk on his lips. “Or should—?”

Agony exploded on his left arm. The thing—having just twisted in his hand and kicked him—falling out of his grasp and darting of the bed, leaving Thomas do double over himself with a loud gasp, his already bruised wrist pressed against his chest, eyes closed, Bea’s voice registering in some part of his mind, even if her words didn’t make much sense at all right now.

“Do you know where the security faucet is?” she queried, going on to explain when he didn’t answer. “You know… the thing to turn off the water supply? You had one outside your London apartment. Mine is inside the storage under the stairs but I can’t find anything of the sort down here. Any idea where it is?”

It hit him them, a dreadful sort of comprehension, one that managed to jump start his brain.

“Are you inside?!”

“Of course I am inside. I climbed up the kitchen window,” she told him and Thomas was on the move, scrambling to get out of the wreckage of the bed, fear tugging at his heart. “Do you know where the faucet is or not, Thomas? Kitchen, maybe?”

“No! Don’t go back there!” A last jerk and he was free, crashing into the water pooling in the bedroom’s floor. “Stay right where you are! There is no need for you to—!”

“I can close it if you tell me where it is.”

“Don’t—!”

Thomas was back on his feet, heading for the door, bent on reaching Bea before something else did and finding himself stopping when the rabbit he had let escape reappeared, one of its co-conspirators fleeing the site as the pest itself stood defiantly between him and the door.

Between him and Bea.

Taking a step in its direction, Thomas was all but growling.

“You better pray, Rabbit, that whatever you had in store for me doesn’t go off on her.”

####  **Cottontail**

The duel had been in full swing when she had left the room, her brother taking the upper hand and managing to toss McGregor against the bed posts, making Cottontail cheer him on before the bubbles engulfed the scene and she darted outside, the wall of foam crumbling at her passage, an excited expression on her face.

Of all of Peter’s many ideas to antagonize McGregor—well, old McGregor, this one hadn’t been here long enough for her brother to bring out the big guns—this was by far her favorite. If only because for once they were all in on it together, rather than Peter going off to be a hero and leaving all of them behind, as lookouts—or worse still, to stay put and hidden and do nothing at all.

It was boring, not to say downright unfair that that was allowed to happen and truly was it not for McGregor’s den having apparently swallowed her sisters whole, this would be perfect. Just like that time when the four of them had gone off to save Benjamin from the clutches of the fiend himself. Or when the five of them had messed with the electric fence and gone dancing down the garden.

Well, if she was right about her sisters whereabouts they would be doing exactly that in a second. She just had to find a way to get on the ground that didn’t involve stairs. Going down stairs was for wimps. She could jump over the railing of course, but considering all these bubbles she probably wouldn’t even see where it was, which meant she could not see where the sofa was, which meant she risked landing on it—which was no fun at all.

_There has to be a way to—!_

And a way she found. By getting her front paws tangled on something—or several somethings—and being sent back flipping on top of it. Before she could get herself to stand on whatever it was that was beneath her, it was moving. Slowly at first, but then faster and faster, rushing passed the bubbles on both sides of the corridor, sending her crashing against the walls at each turn, the bedroom door getting farther and farther behind and then finally it opened in front of her, the hallway, and the thundering of water echoed in the high ceiling without her improvised canoe showing any signs of stopping.

“Uh-oh!”

She grabbed onto the fabric, holding on tight just as the floor disappeared from under her and she started falling, going down the rapids covering the stairs, each of the steps making her jump and her canoe fall apart—trousers and shirts and every single other piece of clothing separating from her carrier until she was left hanging onto a single sock and sent plummeting down the water pooling high on the entrance.

This wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all! But before Cottontail had time to begin panicking at her own inability to get to the surface, something closed around her back, pulling her out of the water and into the relative safety of the entrance’s center table.

“A new helper!”

Paws running over her face, still holding on to a sock, Cottontail looked up to find Bea smiling—and noticeably dry for someone who was knee deep in the rising water—leaning right next to her.

“Are you alright, little one? Were you alone?”

Dark eyes went on to survey the water around her with that question, the loud sequence of crashes coming from the upper floor finally making Bea look up, confusion replacing the concern that had been etched into her expression.

“What is he doing?”

Bea stepped forward, forcing her way through the water. Watching as she called to McGregor on the upper floor, Cottontail took to herself to shake the water off her fur, the splashing making a chorus of outraged voices rise right from her side.

“Stop that!”

“Are you insane?!”

Cottontail stopped, rose and turned. Eyes falling on two brownish dues, paws raised to protect their faces, and without their clothes similar to the point it was difficult to tell them apart. Or so Cottontail had been told. To her they were as different as a radish from a turnip. Flopsy and Mopsy. In that order.

“Where did the two of you hop off to?” Cottontail threw at them, running up to them and tossing her arms around both of their necks. “We lost you upstairs! We were all thinking you were pies by now! Well, at least, Peter was. What happened?”

“What _happened_? Where did _we_ hop off to?” Mopsy repeated, irritably, all the while trying to keep the very drenched Cottontail from wetting her too. “Where were all of _you_? We came down to fetch our clothes just like Peter said! We have been waiting for ages! Thinking we had to rescue all of you lot and—!”

At Mopsy’s side, Flopsy, who had been able to get away from Cottontail’s embrace and was scrapping at her tongue, made a disgusted sound:

“I have your fur in my mouth!”

Cottontail was unmoved, crossing her arms.

“Well, I had your tail all over my face,” Cottontail threw at her sister. “Was it even washed?”

“Well, now it is,” Mopsy retorted, rolling her eyes, her left paw splashing water everywhere as it thumped on the table. “Where _are_ Peter and Benjamin?”

The second part of the question was answered by their cousin jumping out of the bubbles covering the top of the stairs, looking down and, upon finding the three of them safely on top of the table, proceeding to slip on the first step and starting tumbling down the stairs.

The three of them winced, giving a silent cheer when Bea stepped forward, managing to catch him before he sank into the pool below.

“Everyone all right here?” she queried, making her way back to put Benjamin next to them, fingers caressing his head. “No one got—There is one of you missing. Where is your brother?”

Something crashed on the top floor and again Bea turned, her distraction allowing for Mopsy to give Benjamin a hard look.

“My question exactly.”

“That is him.” Benjamin pointed out, only to jump at a second much louder crash. “And that is McGregor. Where were the two of you—?”

A new incredibly loud crash made all of them jump, the commotion on the top floor coming to a sudden halt when McGregor and Peter appeared at the top of the stairs, shock of finding themselves out in the open, making both of them look down, towards Bea, who was looking up, delighted to see them together.

“You found help too?”

“Help?” McGregor repeated, Bea giving a warm smile to the rabbit next to his legs finally alerting him to what she meant. “Oh yes, ‘ _help’_!”

The layers of meaning McGregor had managed to put on that word were seemingly lost on Bea who had turned to look around. The absolute mess around her—one which only rivaled, in Cottontail’s not so modest opinion, with the mess her brother’s party had left behind… well, minus flooding—making Bea frown.

“So?” Bea asked, attention going over one of the white sofas as it floated across the hall and then back to McGregor. “Where is it?”

“Where is what?”

“The security faucet.”

“It is better that I do that.”

“I know how to close a security faucet, Thomas.”

“That is not what worries me,” McGregor put forward, seemingly unconsciously, while giving Peter a nasty glance. “Let me help you with that.”

He stepped towards the stairway, put a foot on the first step and, much like Benjamin, slipped and ended up holding on to the wood railing with Bea giving him such a look he seemingly became rotted on spot.

“Where, _Thomas_?”

“Supplies closet. Left.”

As one Cottontail and her sisters joined Bea at giving him an assertive nod, all three of them turning towards Bea’s target only for Bea herself to march on the opposite direction. On top of the stairs, McGregor raised his eyebrows, one hand pointing her in the right direction, a somewhat timid note in his voice.

“Your other left?”

Turning around, giving him a humorous smile, Bea gave the bubbles and water a determined look.

“On it.”

The instant she was out of sight McGregor’s head snapped at Peter, his–

“I swear, Rabbit—”

—cut short by Peter jumping at him and the battle reigniting.

They were moving down the stairs. Peter climbing up McGregor to kick his face being meet by the mute cheering of his family, only to have the four of them give a collective grimace when he was intercepted by McGregor, pinned against the table on the landing between the two stairways and—

“I did point you in the right direction to London, you know!” Bea’s voice announced, making the battle stop as McGregor, Peter and the four rabbits cheering him on winced and looked down to see, with some relief, her arm – and only her arm – appear from within and above the  bubbles that had engulfed her. “It is that way. I do know where Southeast is.”

“Really?” McGregor queried, attention flying to Peter and then back at her hand, a curious note on his voice. “Why would you know that?”

“It is useful for painting. It helps with shadows, the way some plants grow–”

Still pinned against the table, trying to find a way out, Peter twisted and turned, ending up stretching his legs towards the metal statuette at his side. It fell with a loud crash, missing McGregor’s feet by inches.

“What was that?!”

“Nothing! Keep closing that faucet! Everything is completely under control!”

Peter was in the air again, again aiming to kick McGregor’s face. As one the remaining rabbits raised their paws in anticipation–only this time McGregor wasn’t about to fall for the same trick. He was ripping a picture out of the wall, wielding it against Peter and leaving her brother with no time to evade the blow. His head went right through the paper, leaving his head protruding from where old McGregor’s used to be.

“Well, that is a nice look on the old man,” Flopsy pointed out in a low voice.

Their chuckling, however, rapidly gave way to more silent cheering. Pulling the picture back, meant to strike at Peter again, McGregor had just lifted the still stuck rabbit alongside the picture and Peter didn’t lose time. Taking advantage of the swing, he twisted, legs going up and kicked McGregor’s left wrist.

Struggling to keep a pained gasp from leaving his lips, picture and rabbit falling at his feet, McGregor bent over himself, holding his wrist, a truly poisonous look being thrown Peter’s way.

“That’s it, Rabbit.”

Still struggling to get his head out of the picture, Peter was spared having the statuette he himself had made crash to the ground thrown his way when Bea broke through the bubbles.

“Did it work?”

The four rabbits on the table looked at her, eyes going from her and then back to the stairs only to find McGregor alone, leaning against the railing, the statuette he had had on his hands again over the table, the fingers of his hidden left hand seeming to be grasped by spasms, no rabbit on sight.

It was as noticeable to them as it was, it seemed, to Bea.

“Where is Peter?”

“Peter? That–” McGregor stopped himself right on time, his voice changing to a more soft tone, actually managing to force himself into smiling. “ _He_ is called Peter? He must be checking on the water.”

“The rabbit is checking the water?”

Said older brother, who was, Cottontail had just found, being kept at bay by McGregor’s feet pressing him—and the frame—against the wall under the table struggled to catch Bea’s attention. Not that she was even closer to glance at McGregor’s shoes, when he was about as curious by the name she had just used as Cottontail’s family was.

“She knows his name?” Mopsy pointed out, hopping to the forefront of them and looking back. “How does she know his name?”

“She is psychic,” Flopsy offered, nodding her head as Cottontail tilted hers, curious.

“Does she know all of our names?” she queried, turning to Benjamin as if he would know the answer only to see him biting his lips, down to earth as always.

“She must have heard us,” he muttered. “We have to be more careful.”

The three of them nodded. Not that the three of them were the trouble. The trouble was still being held by McGregor’s foot and on top of the stairs.

“It didn’t stop did it?” Bea was now querying. “My security faucet is outside, next to the front door. I will go and take a look.”

“Take your time!”

McGregor turned the same moment she disappeared in the kitchen’s direction, the statuette immediately flying at the now released Peter, the strike so missing its target that it hit the picture rather than the rabbit, finally allowing him to unstuck his head and flee up the stairs.

“Get back here!”

A second picture was sent flying after Peter, followed by McGregor himself, the uninjured hand being used to help him ran up the stairs. The sound of crashing which ensued for the next few minutes leaving the four remaining rabbits to hesitate on their now loud cheering.

“Should we investigate?” Flopsy put forward, looking over the lake around them for a path to the stairs only to be beat by Cottontail to it.

“Right in front of you, sister.” she said, jumping off the table and onto the floating stool with, surprisingly, not only her sisters but a somewhat reluctant Benjamin behind her too.

“Should we not wait for Bea, though?” he offered, pointing towards the kitchen only to have to squeeze himself against the wood railing when, jumping out of the stool, what little was left of old McGregor’s portrait was ejected from within the bubbles. “We really _really_ should!”

“Come on! You are the one who is always behind Peter!” Cottontail pointed out, turning, paws on her hips, water going by her feet. “Why not us?”

Benjamin opened his mouth to answer only to shut it a moment later. Bea had reappeared. Forcing her way through the water. Attention going up the stairs.

“Still no—” she started only to frown at finding herself mostly alone. “Where is he?”

Water kept rushing down the stairs as she went up, rabbits following behind her legs, the sounds of the scuffle up ahead getting louder and louder until they finally made a suspicious frown settle on Bea’s face.

“Thomas, what is going on?”

A last loud thump was heard just as they entered the room, the popping bubbles giving away to a half wrecked room and a deep silence once the exploding water was turned off. A few more steps inside and they entered the bathroom to find what was either an stomach turning idyllic scene or her brother being caught in the fox’s mouth or knees or—

“And that, Rabbit,” McGregor informed in an upbeat mentoring voice. “Is how to close a security faucet!”

 

####  **Thomas**

It had been by a hair's breadth. Too close for comfort. The clicking of Bea’s low heels not having even registered on his mind up until her question did and the rabbit’s triumphant expression gave it all away. He had been lured into an ambush. Only this time, it didn’t involve snares, garden tools or the electric fence. No, this time the trap was of a different kind.

It was Bea.

“This is low, Rabbit,” Thomas hissed, pulling the still twisting rodent to the level of his eyes just as Bea, having taken a quick look at both of them and how drenched they were, went back into the bedroom. “Too low.”

“Did you say something?”

“Nothing!”

“Is Peter still with you?”

Peter. A last glare and Thomas put the thing on the floor, taking advantage of the draining bathtub to get back on his feet and follow Bea into the bedroom–where the murderous pest already was, alongside the rest of the infestation presently at his house and—

“It isn’t all that dry, but it will do.”

—and her. Shoes hanging from her fingers as she stepped barefooted out of the balcony, blue towel in hand, the smile she gave the rodents waiting for her as they started running around her legs actually making them look less like pests than Thomas liked to acknowledge—at least until she stopped in front of him, the smile wandering over to him, and she took the towel to softly rub his hair dry.

“Is something wrong?”

Other than the possibility of her having just landed on the hit list of a small glowering mammal?

“Nothing at all!”

“If it is about the deluge downstairs, I will help you clean that up.”

“I had forgotten about that,” Thomas sighed, pressing the bridge of his nose. “It is in the kitchen as well, I suppose. And the dining room.”

“It is everywhere.” Bea tilted her head at his groan, one hand letting go off the towel to pull a strand of hair off his eyes and then going back to drying his hair. “This would be a lot easier if you were shorter, you know. Or if I had a stool.”

Thomas blinked, eyes running up and down Bea’s face, confusion taking root on his mind.

“You—You want me to fetch a stool?”

“Or a ladder,” Bea continued, her smile getting bigger by the second, something—something he couldn’t quite place, making her eyes twinkle. “A ladder might do the job.”

“A ladder?”

It hit him then. Like a freight train. What that twinkle was. What that smile stood for.

“You are asking me to sit.”

“Unless you have that stool lying around,” Bea poked at him still, expression getting softer. “I would have used it, you know. The stool.”

It made him smile that, then grab her arm when Bea stepped away from him, the way her attention went to the rabbits—three of them, the smallest ones, having just managed to get on the deceivingly safe looking bed—telling him exactly where she wanted him to sit.

“Not there.”

“Not the—?”

A forth rabbit—the big brown one—took balance, tail wagging behind him and hopped onto the mattress, the very same instant Bea jumped forward, pulling it off the mattress just as it bent and then crashed back into position again.

“How on earth did that happen?!” she shrieked, looking from the bed to Thomas to the thing pressed against her chest and the three who, having jumped off the bed in the nick of time, were now hiding behind her legs. “Were you scared? Did any of you get hurt? You are having no luck at all, are you? First you come to my house and the tree falls. Then I bring you here and—”

Wait wait wait—

“You brought them _here_?”

Now on her knees, blue towel running up and down the lighter of the smaller rabbits—one that actually didn’t seem to be all that pleased with the overwhelming attention—Bea looked at him.

“I told you, remember? Last night. When we came in.” The small rabbit managing to evade the towel made Bea reach forward, pulling it back. “I told you I was going back home to fetch them.”

“I—” All matter rabbits was wiped clean of his mind that same instant. “I let you walk back into a _storm_?!”

Bea raised eyebrows, trading a glance with the largest of the rabbits, all four of them going to look at him—and really what was with that?!—alongside her.

“Do you remember anything from last night?”

“Of course I do. I woke up here. I talked with you—”

There was something in Bea’s expression telling him that had been the wrong answer. It made him fall quiet. That same cold blanket from the night before closing around him like a shroud.

“I did _something_ didn’t I? What did I do?”

“Do? Nothing. I just—I thought you were alright when we came in—you sounded fine. It was when I came back that you were completely out of it.”

It felt just like an ice cube had gone down his throat.

“Out of it?”

“You were freezing, drenched and—” She finally gave up on drying the whitish female, fingers going to caress the head of the second male, who was now perched on her legs. Her attention, however, had wandered outside. Towards the balcony and the roof. “That is really high, you know. What were you thinking?”

“Thinking?”

It took all he had not to look at the rabbits. Truth was he actually didn’t remember getting on the roof, he didn’t even remember going up the stairs or entering the room. The last thing he recalled vividly were a bunch of rabbits climbing up the electric fence, licking it, dancing down the garden and him trying to open the door only to be thrown across the room. However vague that was, it was enough to tell him exactly what he had been planning. To get to the roof. Grab hold of the piping. And get to the garden through there.

“You were planning to go down the piping?”

Thomas raised his attention to Bea. He had blurted that out. Of course, he had.

“Why would you even need to go down the piping?”

He bit his tongue just in case.

“Did you lock yourself in the balcony?”

That was actually a perfectible reasonable and sane explanation and before he could ruin everything with his big mouth—

“Yes! That was exactly what happened! I went out to the roof, the door locked behind me—”

“You could have called me.”

“No cellphone coverage.”

“I live just outside the garden wall.”

“I know. It’s one of the place’s beauties.” Thomas said and the smile that followed that was only meant for him. “I mean, not in a sturdy garden door way. In a “you” way. I’m talking about you. And I’m listening to myself and this is coming out incredibly awkward, isn’t it?”

“No, no. That is sweet.”

“It is?” For some reason that was really hard to believe. “Just wanted to make sure you didn’t think I was describing the door. Like I was last time. I am never going to outlive that, am I?”

Bea chuckled, getting to her feet with the menace itself on her arms.

“I never said anything.”

“Oh—You thought I meant _you_ wouldn’t let me forget? No, no, I meant _me_.”

This time she truly laughed. The smile that plastered on Thomas’ face, however, slowly disappeared, crumbling under a still pressing worry.

“So I did nothing?” he insisted, waiting for Bea to stop laughing. “Last night? You are sure?”

“Why would you have done something?” she queried, visibly confused. “I just brought you to the room, put you into bed—”

“I did wonder how I ended up in my pajamas.”

Bea's eyes turned the size of nuts, her face all shades of scarlet.

“That—That was you!”

_Oh—_

“I—I just brought you here. You needed help!"

"Of course, I did."

"You would've done the same."

"Anyone would."

"I only provided assistance."

"Perfectly understandable."

 _If a bit disappointing_ , the part of his mind that wasn’t engaged on trying to reassure Bea after he just about managed to screw things up, chimed in. Silently. Just to start glaring daggers at the menace on her arms when it gave him what sounded too much like a derisive scoff—something Bea clearly took for a sneeze… and an opportunity to change the conversation.

“You don’t mind they stay here a while, do you?”

He did mind. A lot more than he could possibly put into words. The instant Bea looked back at him, however, whatever his feelings were, whatever he wished to say, died on his lips.

“I can’t think of a better idea!”

Alongside every single ounce of common sense.

“Are you sure?” Bea queried further, studying his expression. “I know you don’t like having animals—Well, wild animals inside.”

Thomas’ eyebrows jumped.

“Don’t I?”

“You said so. Some days ago.”

There was a moment of silence in which his eyes ran up and down Bea’s face, anxiety making his smile waver before he managed to get a hold of himself.

“No. No! Of course, they can stay. They are cold and homeless, they need a place to stay. I can’t leave those adorable _sweethearts_ …”

He could feel himself rapidly running out of sincerity, smile and just about everything in between, Peter’s—great, now he was calling it ‘Peter’—smug expression as Bea went to beam down at it seemingly threatening to crack Thomas’ face in a thousand pieces.

“See? I told you not all of them are bad,” she said to it, turning to address the rest of the county’s rabbit population. “He even said you can all stay at his place. He is nice.”

_And dead in the morning if these things have it their way._

Bea took a step his way, still holding ‘Peter’, one hand going to rest on Thomas’ arm.

“I’m really glad you made an effort to get along with them,” she said, finger caressing his arm. “I actually thought you didn’t like them.”

It felt like his heart had just leaped out of his chest—and not in a pleasant way.

“Why would you think that? What did I do to make you think that?”

“You did call them vermin,” Bea pointed out. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you kept the garden doors closed.”

“Big city habits?”

She smiled. That counted as something. It had to count as something. What he didn’t expect was for her fingers to softly touch his face and to watch her get herself on her tiptoes to place a kiss on his cheek.

 

####  **Benjamin**

There truly was some very obvious if silent awing coming from where his three cousins stood, heads tilted and looking at the scene. What promised to be a rather long session of romantic sighing—one that would stretch throughout the entire day and into the early hours of the morning—however, came to a sudden end when Flopsy caught her brother’s expression.

“What is happening to him?” she asked, elbowing Mopsy and pointing her attention at Peter as he stood pressed between Bea and McGregor. “Did he swallow something?”

“If he did it tasted horribly.”

Attention called to the scene by Mopsy and Flopsy conspiring tones, Cottontail frowned.

“Maggot. Or a fly,” she offered, nodding with the conviction of a true connoisseur. “That was definitely a fly.”

There were honestly some things Benjamin would rather not know about—Cottontail’s eating habits being on the top of his list—Peter twisting and turning and ending up kicking McGregor’s stomach to force the two humans apart, however, was not the sort of thing he could run away from. It made him drop his ears.

“I don’t think that is fly related.”

The three does gave him a confused look, only to ran excitedly towards their brother when, stepping away from McGregor, Bea dropped a very belligerent looking Peter next to them. Then she went back to where McGregor stood, his fingers touching the spot her lips had touched, not all effort in the world being able to suppress his still stunned expression when she again addressed him.

“You know, I think I saw your bed linens fleeing for the garden when I came up the kitchen window,” she told him. “Not to say a rabbit riding your clothes down the stairs.”

“My—” A pair of seconds were needed for McGregor’s brain to reconnect. “W _hat?!”_

Green eyes snapped back at them, clear anger in them. Not that Bea noticed it when she was dropping to her knees next to them, smiling.

“Who wants to help us?”

She didn’t need to ask twice, the instant she spoke the girls bolted forward and Bea was up, going to grab McGregor’s hand and pull him alongside both her and his three cousins. Meant on following them, Benjamin still approached the glowering Peter, speaking in a whisper, pleading.

“Peter—”

It was all it took for the anger to explode.

“He is stringing her along! Why doesn’t she see that?!”

Still pulling McGregor by the hand, smiling at the three rabbits hopping around her feet, Bea stopped, fingers hovering over the door handle, McGregor coming to a halt behind making her raise her eyebrows.

“Just need a minute.”

Bea’s inquisitive look was met by McGregor pointing at the towel she still had on her hands. Whatever that meant, it made Bea look from him to Peter, expression lighting up.

“That is really sweet. Come on, girls.”

Glancing at his cousin, seeing Bea give the blue towel to McGregor by the corner of his eyes, Benjamin pushed Peter, forcing him to follow Bea rather than keep glaring to the now waving-at-her-back-McGregor, to hop passed his shoes and—

The door was closing.

It clicked in place in front of them.

It had to be a mistake. An honest mistake. The human must not have noticed they were still inside. Or so he thought, up until he looked and found McGregor’s eyes on them, their expression such Benjamin retreated behind Peter.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you are trying to do. What you have been trying to do ever since I got here.”

McGregor stepped away from the door with those words. One single step and he was standing right in front of them. Tall and angry and growling.

“The traps on my bed. The electric fence. This.” He made a gesture encompassing the entire house, eyes turning into slits when the smallest hint of pride went over Peter’s expression. “Don’t flatter yourself, Rabbit. I have dealt with far worse than you. And I really don’t like how you keep taking advantage of _her_ kindness.”

That hit home if nothing else did. Peter was on his feet, meeting McGregor’s bared teeth expression with one of his own, eyes on his. The stare down came to an end as quickly as it started, however—and not because one of them had somehow emerged victorious, no.

McGregor simply seemed to realize what he was doing.

“I’m speaking with rodents,” he whispered, voice and eyes growing increasingly lifeless. “Anthropomorphizing them.”

He stepped away from them with that, going to sit at the armchair Bea had occupied last night, back bent, right hand covering his face, the blue towel she had given him clasped between his fingers.

“I am losing my mind.”

If the girls had been here they would be worrying, just like they had been the night before. But the girls had always been braver than him—perhaps the right expression would be _more reckless—_ and Benjamin was far too scared to be worried—and so he pulled at Peter, trying to get him to leave the room.

“Let’s go,” Benjamin begged, belly low against the floor, eyes jumping between his cousin and the door. “Peter. Let’s go!”

One of the doors on the lower floor was pulled open. Then another. Water thundered outside. The noise rose up the hall and the open balcony door alongside a chuckle and Bea’s voice calling from the garden.

“Thomas, you have to come down!” she said, half laughing. “There is a deer in the garden and I swear he is trying to make off with one of your shirts!”

McGregor raised his head. The shadow that had been on his eyes receding as he made sense of the words and that smile, the one which looked a lot like laughter, the one only Bea seemed to be able to coax out of him, found its way back to his face. He was on his feet and crossing the bedroom, the door being immediately cracked open.

“A deer?”

He made a gesture to step outside, only to stop the same instant, hand over the door knob.

“I am serious, hurry up!”

“I’m coming.”

But he wasn’t. His hand was still pretty much latched to the door knob, eyes going from the crumbling wall of bubbles to the water still going by his feet and finally stopping at his own left wrist and the bad looking bruise going around it.

Elbowing Peter yet again, bent on taking advantage of McGregor’s distraction and the open door, Benjamin was practically being forced to push him outside when McGregor’s green eyes again fell on them, harsh and decided.

“I was once forced to leave my home,” he growled at them. “I will you see you out, Rabbit, before I allow for that to ever happen again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the feud starts anew! Shout out to yingyangmaster who figured out Flopsy and Mopsy were not on the bedroom last chapter! And now, onwards :-)
> 
> A big thank you to Jojo1112 who, once again, got the rebelious ends of this chapter to cooperate.


End file.
